The present invention relates to the handling of items, primarily individually-packaged edible ice products such as ice lollies, which in respectively different characters are delivered from a multi-line production or packaging machine, and which thereafter are desired to be grouped in portions consisting of one or more of each of the relevant characters.
It is a concrete starting point for the invention that it is desired to provide carton packages with a content of e.g. 3-4 different items, primarily with individual packages of different appearance, which in the following are characterized by different colors or types (A,B,C), in that here the extent to which the items in these different packages are identical or of different kinds is less decisive. In principle, the problem presents itself in the same way in cases where items of different kinds are concerned which can possibly be packed in identical individual packages.
Consequently, the relevant task will be to gather the items delivered from the parallel lines into equal groups of single items from each of the lines, with the view to the transfer of these groups to respective receiving units, preferably portion cartons. There is no immediate problem whatsoever involved in solving this problem, but it very quickly becomes problematic when various additional factors have to be taken into consideration, primarily that for various reasons production stoppages of shorter or longer duration can arise in one or even more of the delivery lines, e.g. when breakage occurs in an associated line of packaging material in connection with a so-called flow-packing of the items.
This will already require that in order to ensure that the portion cartons are not transferred with deficient item portions, a distinct buffer capacity and/or ejection units for items to be rejected, re-circulated or separate collection must be arranged in the individual lines. This can also be arranged in a multiplicity of ways, but the invention is based on one of the concrete methods which have found widespread application in practice, namely the use of transport means of the xe2x80x9cfloating pocketxe2x80x9d type. This means that the items from the different delivery lines are transferred to respective, transverse, further-transporting accumulation conveyors, and brought to support units which are friction-driven on these conveyors in such a manner that, at a delivery end thereof, they can be packed closely together, so that at these delivery ends there will constantly exits items which then, by use of suitable lifting-over means, can be gripped and transferred transversely for placing in groups in respective cartons delivered on a conveyor.
Brief production stoppages in the different delivery lines can hereby be absorbed, while for stoppages of long duration there can be arranged ejection means for items to be discarded, or accumulation stations in connection with the transverse-leading conveyor sections which deliver the items to the respective xe2x80x9cfloat pocketxe2x80x9d conveyors.
It is a plant of precisely this type which is the starting point for the invention, in that with the invention it has been realized that this type of plant can be modified in an advantageous manner, namely among other things for the simplification of the said lifting-over means, and in achieving that use shall be made of only a single float pocket conveyor, in the followed referred to as the slide conveyor with associated slide trays for receiving the individual items.
According to the invention, between the said delivery lines and the relevant slide conveyor, respective transfer conveyors extend which open out in mutually separated delivery areas seen in the longitudinal direction of the slide conveyor, each of which has means for controlled delivery of the foremost item to a slide tray in the relevant position. Correspondingly, means are provided at each of these positions for the controlled retention and individual release of the slide trays in and from these item receiving stations. By means of a related control unit, it is hereby possible to achieve that different items from the delivery zone are fed forward on the slide conveyor in the desired grouped sequence, for example A,B,C+A,B,C etc. in the case of three different product types, and since these groups will or can be constantly delivered up towards a fixed xe2x80x9cend stationxe2x80x9d on the slide conveyor, it will be relatively simple to arrange a repeated lateral transfer of these groups to the carton line. This task will be considerably easier and safer to solve than where a lateral transfer must be arranged from several different slide conveyors lying at different distances from the carton line.
The above-mentioned problem with regard to local production stoppages can be overcome by the leading-out of items from the conveyor sections which are inserted between the discharge lines and the individual feeding-in positions along the slide conveyor.
The invention will afford the considerable advantage that plant which has been originally acquired for the handling of just a single or two different product types, can be extended relatively easily and cheaply for the handling of one or several additional product types, since use can continue to be made of the single existing slide conveyor, and merely adding extra conveyor means between added supply lines and the existing slide conveyor, i.e. the plant according to the invention will to a considerable degree be flexible with regard to various user requirements.